Move along now... nothing to hear

13 comments:

If people on the street are stopping you to question the breathing noises your dog is making maybe that should be a hint that your dog is fu**ed; a sign that continuing to manufacture such dogs is animal abuse and should be banned worldwide. How can these owners accept the snorting/snuffling/gasping as "normal"? They simply have no idea what their animals are going through.

Unfortunately many people believe that this is just the way French Bulldogs are "supposed" to sound. I've heard comments like this before when talking with other Frenchie owners when we were discussiong our dogs' health. You often hear things like "They do make noises when breathing, but nothing that wasn't normal for the breed", claiming their dogs were very healthy. Luckily having two French Bulldogs that don't make any such noises at all I know that it is not normal at all.

Agreed. Again, it boggles the mind how clueless people are about the consequences of their animal breeding and purchasing decisions. If a population of dogs looks frustrated simply because they're trying to breathe due to intentional birth defects, then those dogs should not longer be bred. It's really very simple.

Can't say its ever been a problem for me; my dog has a nose. You can't hear him breathing from half a mile away, so no-one ever feels the need to ask about that. Perhaps the fact that other people can actually hear your dog's struggle for air enough to comment on it, regularly, should be an indicator that something is very wrong? I dunno, maybe thats just me. I kinda pay attention if the same concern about my dog keeps being raised again and again.

I notice these noises -- "symptoms", actually -- coming from some cavalier King Charles spaniels, almost all of which are overweight. While cavaliers are included in the brachycephalic category, the most frequent breathing-difficulty issues are with the fat CKCSs. But even the skinny ones can suffer periodically from elongated soft palates, causing the snorting sound called a reverse sneeze.

But, because these encounters with obese cavaliers usually occur at pet owner social events, I am not allowed to go full throttle Fraser Hale and condemn the owners for trying to kill their pets. So I end up biting my tongue, heading home with blood dripping from my mouth, and usually re-post an old blog about obese cavaliers, on a Facebook page. --- Rod Russell, Orlando, Florida, USA

Random strangers showing genuine concern over the symptoms of respiratory distress in brachycephalic dogs does not wind me up one bit. In fact it is reassuring to know that people are showing concern for the welfare of animals like Frenchies and Pugs who are suffering because of people like yourself who buy them and think that they are normal dogs. They are not normal anatomically or physiologically - they are disabled and diseased and born to suffer.

What winds me up are that the owners and breeders of these types of dogs refuse to recognise, comprehend or abandon their cognitive bias and understand that it is THEY who are actually uneducated, ignorant and possibly behaving like 'tools'.

A few weeks I was on a Facebook page of Bulldog fanciers. I asked a couple of questions and I received a couple of responses. It was not until I asked a question about snoring that the responses began pouring in. Here are some of the responses I received when I mentioned snoring: “Bulldog that doesn't snore.. Isn't a bulldog” “Wouldn't sleep without that snore” “Snore...only 24/7..a little bit gassy...only 24/7...lovable. .only with every breathe they take!”

I also documented several additional responses on my blog.http://politicaldawg.blogspot.com/2016/02/if-i-had-to-eat-dog-nsnn-and-trolling.html

Dear "wound up" Frenchie owner: You had lots of great options to work with: there, their, they're, and there are. And you chose the same wrong option for all four instances... ;) Sorry but come on! P.S. maybe there's a legitimate issue with your dog's breathing.

I know Zuber, Crawford and Gent personally. On the first two I can absolutely attest to their scientific rigour, love of animals and desire to see breeds become more robust, even though to do so would mean less work for veterinarians! Gent is trapped between a rock and a hard place, please don't suggest he may have written those comments(at least,of his own volition) without evidence. He is but a servant of his membership.

The ANKC is dying, in NSW alone the number of "registered" pure bred breeders has dropped from more than 25,000 to under 10,000 as breeders die or leave (most to Master Breeders Assoc & Assoc of Pet Dog Breeders) or just go it alone "from their backyards'. Unfortunately this is leaving some pretty interesting, sometimes power hungry and increasingly strident animals in the ANKC organisations. They appoint their friends as judges, play the politics, and shriek in ever decreasing circles....smaller and smaller fish in a big pond.

The joke's on them, the Australian population hasn't bought the rhetoric and is buying dogs elsewhere. Will we end up at the same stage as Pre-dog-associations? Would prefer not, but it's all going the wrong way at the moment..... in the meantime,for so many purebred breeders it's so much easier and heaps more fun to shoot the messenger!

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About Me

I grew up with pedigree dogs - English Setters, Great Danes, Labradors and, most recently, Flatcoated Retrievers. Today, I share my home with an assortment of dogs, purebred and mutts. In 2008, I directed Pedigree Dogs Exposed, a BBC documentary which uncovered the extent of health and welfare problems in pedigree dogs. The film has now been shown in more than 20 countries. Campaigning for improved purebred dog health is now a great passion - one fuelled by the fear that those who currently view themselves as the guardians of pedigree dogs are, often unwittingly, the agents of their demise.
My mission, then, is to continue to highlight where things have gone wrong and to encourage breeders and Kennel Clubs to embrace reform - particularly when it comes to harmful phenotypes and inbreeding.